


A Cannoneer, A Helmsman, and A Threshecutioner Walk Into A Bar

by twofoldAxiom



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Alternate Universe - Space, Bars and Pubs, Biting, Bulges and Nooks (Homestuck), Hook-Up, M/M, Multi, Nook Eating (Homestuck), Nook Fingering (Homestuck), Psionic Bondage, Psionic Sex, Purring Trolls (Homestuck), Sloppy Makeouts, Threesome - M/M/M, Threshecutioner Karkat, Troll Dave Strider, Trollstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:42:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25735993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twofoldAxiom/pseuds/twofoldAxiom
Summary: The old joke goes "A cannoneer, a helmsman, and a threshecutioner walk into a bar. The cannoneer orders himself a drink because he's lost his job, the helmsman orders himself two drinks because he's lost his ship, and the threshie orders the rest of the bar because he's only blown up one freighter."It's kind of like that, except Karkat doesn't have that kind of alcohol tolerance and you still have a job.
Relationships: Sollux Captor/Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Sollux Captor/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 8
Kudos: 72
Collections: Drone Season 2020





	A Cannoneer, A Helmsman, and A Threshecutioner Walk Into A Bar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aewin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aewin/gifts).



He's been eyeing you and Karkat across the room for like the entire time he's been in here, that rustblood with the dark shades and bleached hair. You guess that's not too surprising considering who you are and the fact that Karkat can't modulate his voice worth shit, but even a cannoneer and a mutant threshie side-by-side don't usually get that kind of scrutiny.

Mostly because other trolls try not to look the two of you in the ganderbulbs, especially Karkat, but still. It's like he doesn't realize how obvious he's being. The way he carries himself, he thinks those aviators are going to do anything to hide the rest of his body language. He leans forward to get a better look at you, and then when you catch him he plays it off like he was watching the screen on the other side of the bar.

He's also been sipping the same drink since you got here about half an hour ago. Karkat might take that long to get through his shitty sangria, but you have better things to do. People to do, if you're interpreting that look correctly.

Karkat's busy talking shit about some blueblood officer of his to the bartender (she knows the guy, it's a mutual gripe session), so you grab him by the arm and squeeze under the countertop as subtly as you can. He doesn't stop talking to the bartender, but he looks where you're looking. The rustblood stands out in the crowd mostly by virtue of his bleached hair, and Karkat turns to face you properly.

"You're joking." He says.

"Am I?" You grin at him as he slurps up the rest of his drink and starts picking at the soggy fruit bits with the little paper precipitation obstructor. You take it from his graspnubs and down the remnants of ice and canned pineapple in one gulp. "Come on, he's cute and he's been looking at you like a starved barkbeast outside a buffet all evening. I know you're a hardass, but don't you think it's cute?"

Karkat sniffs and cranes his neck to look, squinting as un-subtly as it gets. When he sits back down, his expression is still as sour as ever, but there's that little bit of interest in his eyes that you know means you've got a chance here.

"He looks like a douchebag. Nobody bleaches their hair like that except douchebags."

In your peripheral vision you see the rustblood self-consciously tugging at his bangs. It shouldn't be as endearing as it is.

"And yet you hang out with Eridan Ampora." You snort, sliding his now-empty glass back to him. He glances back at the rustblood, who is now doing his best impression of someone who totally doesn't care, honest, it's fine. The way he ducks his head and slumps his shoulders in defeat is fit to make even Karkat's pityglands water.

He sighs, that long-suffering sound that means he wants to be convinced but doesn't want to say it. He's scrutinizing the rustblood with something closer to actual pity now, and if you didn't know Karkat as well as you do, that might've made you jealous. "That just incriminates the both of us with bad taste if you want to go after him."

You sidle up to Karkat so you can lean your chin on his shoulder in an obvious display of affectionate loathing, digging in as hard as you can while you tilt his face towards the rustblood with your psionics. Karkat stiffens under you, hands curled dangerously on his thighs, but he doesn't growl like he would if he meant it as more than a momentary reaction.

"Look, he's alone." You say. "And you can see the ports on his thoracic struts right through that shirt, and you can practically see his thoracic struts too. That too-cool-for-everyone-here douchebag act is more transparent than that glass you're holding, especially since he's been making eyes at us every time you look away. I bet you'd show him a better time than any of the nooksniffing losers he's ever had in his life, and you wouldn't even have to go through the trouble of feeding him grubcakes when the sun goes down."

"You fucking asshole, that last part isn't a perk. Don't you know anything about proper pailing etiquette?" Karkat follows your line of sight, and you think that rustblood might even be posing for it, trying to look vulnerable without it being pale, lowered eyelids and pouting lips.

Karkat shifts in his seat and you slam that corpse hull shut: "You don't even have to fuck him. You could just watch me get magically pushed around for once."

You can see the gears click into place as you say it, and Karkat throws his hands up. "Fine." He says. "You win. Come on, let's go bother him."

You're not puerile enough to do a fist pump, but you grin wider than a desert barkfiend as you order another drink and lead the way. The rustblood sprawls himself across his seat as he sees the two of you coming, then thinks better of it and leans forward with his chin in one hand, and then thinks better of that and just sits back in his seat like you're about to give him an interview. Poor fucker.

"Hey." Karkat growls, ever the charmer, but your new friend shivers and bites his lip.

"Hey yourself." He says. South Alternian lowblood's drawl, faint but noticeable. You wonder if he has highblood friends to practice hiding it with. Up close you wonder if it's the danger that gets him off, making eyes at threshies and cannoneers, or if the package deal made him curious. "What brings you two over here?"

"Same as you; seeing the sights, meeting new people, that good life. Of course, the locale's a shithole, the locals are hostile, and I might be dead next apogee." It's an old, tired joke between everyone lower than olive, but you see him trying not to smile anyway. You sit right next to him while Karkat takes up the other side of you, close but giving the rustblood a place to run if he feels like it.

You really hope he doesn’t. He’s warm, almost as warm as Karkat where you’re sitting, and you’re hoping to know how much warmer it’s going to be if you get yourself sandwiched between them.

"It's what it is." Karkat says, shrugs, and then goes in for the kill. "You were staring at me and Sollux earlier. Sollux is a bulgesucking, horned-up pailbeast on the best of nights and not much different the rest of the time, and by some grace of the unknown machinations of the Universe, he's gotten me interested. So! That leaves you. I'm Karkat. You are?"

"Dave Strider. Call me Dave- or, I guess you won't really have to call me anything if you don't call back. Uh, wait, shit that sounds like I don't want you to call me back. I mean if I get your number I _do_ want some form of contact there, if you're gonna give me your number at all; I'm not gonna turn down getting your number or maybe your trollhandle or something, maybe just a general idea of when you want to come back to this bar if ever..."

You might still be interested, but if this guy keeps going you're not so sure if Karkat will be. That'd be a moodkiller if there ever was one, considering this was your idea. You clear your throat.

"Let's try to get through the next couple hours first." You say. "And hey, relax. It's not Drone Season, you know? You look about ready to throw up last week's grubloaf."

"Would it be in bad taste to say that I feel like it?" He says, smiles, and then the smile wavers and he coughs into his fist. "Ignore that. I haven't actually had any grubloaf since installation, but I _did_ lick up someone's nostril by mistake a few days ago, and that's basically the same thing."

Karkat laughs, a sharp "Hah!" that shocks your new friend Dave enough that your glass gently tips over from the psionic backlash. Dave tries to catch it but all he manages to do is smack it right into you, spilling the freezing contents all over your lap.

"Shit!" You try to stand, thump your knee under the table, and sit back down with another swear. The glass rolls off the table and thuds to the floor. (It's a good thing most bars these days have switched to plastic glasses. Easier to keep the patrons from using them as makeshift weaponry, you guess.)

"Ah, fuck." Dave smacks himself in the face, and starts pulling tissues out of the little dispenser on the table. Karkat looks like he has to physically stop himself from wheezing with laughter. "Sorry, that doesn't- that doesn't normally happen, come on, don't laugh."

Karkat snorts. "I'll give you a pass on spilling cheap booze all over Sollux if you explain how you _accidentally_ shove your tasteflap up someone's sniffnode."

"I feel like I should be the one to make that call." Still, you take the tissues, and Dave looks a little less like he's going to flee now that you've decided not to decapitate him for his mistake. You're not really paying attention to what he says, but you catch bits and pieces. A janitor's closet, drone season pheromones, and apparently he doesn't even _fuck_ without his shades.

"You didn't think to make an exception that one time?" You ask, tossing the tissues under the table. Karkat kicks them a little further towards the wall.

"I couldn't exactly think about it at the time." Dave chuckles, low and husky. He waggles his eyebrows at you and you're pretty sure this is the part where the Pailhub Community intro starts playing. "But I can think _now._ Either of you wanna be the exception?"

You grin, looking sidelong at Karkat. Even he can't keep the smug look off his face.

"That's been the idea the whole time, you know. What do you say about _both_ of us being the exception?"

Dave stares, and for a split second you think he's going to bolt after all, but his face splits into a wide grin and he looks between you two like that starved barkbeast analogy getting into the buffet and trying to decide what to go for first.

"Well, what are we waiting around for?" He lowers his shades to get a clearer look at the two of you, eyes startlingly red. Huh. You didn't know mutants could be helmsmen but you guess that wouldn't be the weirdest thing you've ever seen. If anything, it gets you wondering what other surprises he has in store.

***

A couple of things you hadn't expected to do tonight:

1.) Meet a mutant. (Besides the one you came to the bar with.)

2.) Get fucked in an alley.

There's no third point because you hadn't been thinking too hard about anything else, and you don't much like things that come in threes.

As soon as the three of you are out the door, Karkat and Dave seem to share some kind of understanding. Their hands are on you in seconds, warmer than anything else you've ever had. Karkat's are forceful and familiar, and you follow their lead with ease. Dave's are a little more tentative, but no less intoxicating in their novelty.

It's Dave who takes the lead, surprisingly. Karkat backs him up, backing _you_ up into the alley Dave is leading the two of you into. At first you think it's a shortcut to somewhere else he wants to do the deed, but it stops in a dead end, deep and shadowed even in the artificial daylight. It reeks, unarousingly, of trash and old blood, but under that is the distinct smell of spilled genematerial soaked into the ground.

"Nice choice." Karkat grunts, but the sarcasm loses its bite when his voice is low with lust, subsonic vibrations in his chest buzzing against your horns. You shut him up by turning your head and dragging him close by the hair, kissing him wet and deep. The sounds between you and Karkat are only interrupted by the sound of Dave's dry, hungry gulp. 

When you break the kiss, there's spit shining between you two and you can feel the air humming with a very literal charge, yours _and_ Dave's. Dave looks like he's about to collapse against the wall with how fast all the blood's rushed down to his bulge, sweat shining on his face and silvery hair fluffed up from static.

Karkat nips your lip and bodily shoves you against Dave. To his credit, he's quick enough on the uptake that you don't hit the ground or the wall, and despite how thin and malnourished he looks, there's genuine strength in the arms wrapped around you.

"I'm getting the sense that you two do this a lot." He mutters.

"Sollux does." Karkat's teeth are sharp and bright, wet with a thin smear of your blood. He licks it up and shivers, but his grin makes your gut roil with tar-black lust. You're not sure how Dave feels about it but you can feel his bulge squirming against your thigh. "Sometimes I join in, sometimes I just watch."

"Yeah, if you don't get your bulge out in the next sixty seconds I'm going to rip it out of that stupid uniform for you." You turn to look at Dave, cradling the side of his face with one hand. "Don't mind him, he always gets into it. Now push me against the wall."

Dave's eyes go wide behind his shades, but you feel his bulge _throb._ You drag your tongue across his lower lip and feel him shudder under your touch, before his body gets with the program and he pushes you against the wall like you'd asked. Like this, you're _very_ well aware that he's a little shorter than you, not as short as Karkat but enough that this is going to take some maneuvering. But you don't really mind as you get your graspnubs in his fluffy hair, luxuriating in the softness of it. It's almost feathery, especially compared to the wiry bristles and dense curls most trolls have.

And it's more than strong enough to withstand you pulling on it, surprisingly. Dave _moans_ when you do, when you get your mouth on his neck and wrap your thighs around his hips. He ruts against you even though you're still fully clothed. His hands grip your thighs and you could swear he's not using any psionics to hold you up at all. What kind of helmsman is he? Or maybe he's not a helmsman after all.

You can see Karkat over his shoulder as you suck on his neck, sitting on a nearby crate and teasing himself through his pants. That's not going to do; you want him involved. You suck a hickey into Dave's skin and wink at Karkat as circles of crackling light pull his hands away from his crotch. You relish in the surprise on his face, the realization and anger and the way he struggles against your psionics.

"You fucking cheater, you said _you'd_ be the one getting tossed around with bullshit thinkmeat magic!" He yells, because Karkat doesn't do anything quietly, but you catch his jaw with your psi and let him hiss and growl about it. Still, he raises his hips when you start undoing his clothes; moans when you coax his bulge out of the confines of his stupid threshie pants with mild, pulsing shocks. You keep his legs spread and his arms behind his head, watching the bright red curl of his bulge writhing against the taut skin of his lower belly.

You suddenly feel your fingers being pried off of Dave's hair. Surprised, you look at them and see a diffused, reddish glow around your whole hand, before you feel something hook around your neck and pull you against the wall. Huh. Your concentration almost breaks for a second, your immediate thought being that you're under attack.

But Dave kisses you full on the mouth, hungrily, then nervously, and then like he's making up for hesitating at all. You feel the warmth of that red glow crawling up your arms, under your clothes, against the ports in your neck and spine. _Then_ your concentration breaks, and you don't even care as you feel Dave getting your plugsuit undone. You pull him closer with an answering rush of energy, and swallow around his moans.

It's always a complicated affair getting in and out of this stupid thing, and you can tell when he gets frustrated when you feel him pull away. What you don't expect is for a different pair of lips to meet yours, rough and demanding, but in a way you immediately recognize. Karkat undoes your clothes with practiced efficiency, his fingers sprawled across your lower belly. Dave's psi keeping you against the wall has you completely at their mercy, something you haven't felt in a pretty long time.

It's hot as fuck, honestly.

Dave's breath is the first thing your bulges get acquainted with when Karkat stops pulling at your clothes and Dave takes over. It's a little unfair that they're both (mostly) dressed while you're completely nude by now, but you'll excuse it because of Dave's breathless "holy _shit"_ at the sight of your bulges coiling against each other. One probing finger slides between them, unzipping them from each other. You shiver under the feeling, taking a deep breath when Karkat finally stops kissing you to watch Dave.

"This is for real?" Dave asks, letting one curl around a couple digits. The other makes a concentrated effort to fuck the space between his thumb and pointer, and if you weren't being held up by him and Karkat, your knees probably would've given out. "No mods?"

"Completely-" You groan as he does that thing with his fingers again, your nook clenching around nothing, aching for more. "Completely natural, I swear."

"Neat." He says. Then he opens his mouth and drags his tongue where his finger had gone.

"Oh, _fuck!"_

You gasp, arching your back. The metal-carapace wall sticks and unsticks against your sweaty skin, but Karkat and Dave don't let you fall. Dave kisses between your bulges like he's trying to tonguefuck your sheathe, making your walknubs curl as sparks flicker in and out of existence behind your eyes and between your horns. You keen as you grab hold of one of Dave's horns, pulling him flush against your crotch and aching for more, and he answers by opening his mouth wider and _taking it._

Karkat starts touching his own bulge, getting his fingers nice and wet before rubbing two against the entrance to your nook. His fingers are a little on the stubby side, and you used to make fun of him for trimming his claws short and blunt, but they feel so good pushing into you now, crooked against the inner lining of your nook and forcing your bulges out further. When Dave moans around your bulges- and you didn't even think he'd manage to take one, let alone both- you try to hump your hips against his face. Karkat stills you with the fingers in your nook, making you whimper.

Dave starts bobbing his head, fucking his throat on your bulges. You hear him choke a couple times, hear Karkat mutter something to him that might be praise or might be an insult, but you're too busy focusing on how good it feels to actually figure out what it is. Karkat's fingers somehow manage to keep time with Dave's mouth, stirring and spreading you open, and if you weren't leaking already, you'd probably be gushing across his hand.

Everything between your legs feels swollen and well-used when Dave finally pulls his head up. The slick sound of his mouth leaving your bulges makes you whimper again.

"You alright?" Karkat asks. You're not sure who he's asking. Dave takes a couple deep breaths and shoves a hand down his pants; you just gurgle. Karkat grins. "Get up, bulge-breath; we aren't done here."

"Speak for yourself." You groan, mush-mouthed and limp. Dave just about sucked the life out of you; you almost hadn't realized you'd spilled, with the constant pressure building and releasing as he sucked you off. It's more likely you've produced half a pail's worth of genemat' in what little time you've been against this wall. 

(If it was a little. Your hips are sore enough that it might've been a bit longer than that. If you ever do hook up again, you want to try his mouth on your nook next.)

Dave wipes his mouth and stands, shaky and dizzy-looking. Karkat murmurs something in his ear and he looks between the two of you, takes his shades off, and tucks them into his shirt. You laugh, probably delirious from dehydration and overstimulation. Karkat wipes his sticky fingers off on your face, and you growl.

"You sure this is a good idea?" Dave asks. You're still out of it, but the look on Karkat's face-

"I know that look." You say, alert now. 

"Good." Is Karkat's only response. He tugs Dave close by the collar of his shirt, careful not to displace his shades; it's a little more consideration than he usually gives to that sort of thing, maybe Kanaya is having a positive effect on him after all. "It's not exactly getting to watch you being thrown around by bullshit magic, but I think I like this idea better."

Dave glances at your teeth with the kind of concern someone looks at an obvious trap with. You lick across them, showing him the seam in your tongue, and his eyes go wide as you part it down the middle.

"Think of it as Sollux returning the favor." Karkat says, helping tug Dave's pants down. He grimaces, and you snicker a little as Dave's bulge spills out in a long, red coil. "Ugh. That's just not fair."

"Don't be jealous, babe, size isn't everything." Karkat shoots you a glare, but you take hold of his bulge as Dave lowers you to the ground. Naked, covered in sweat and your own material, and about to suck off a couple mutants in an alley, one of which you've barely even met. Heat practically radiates off the two of them, and you lick your lips. "So who's first? I'm kidding. You're both first."

"That is unreal. That's definitely a mod. I'm pretty sure tongues don't just do that, right? Who did that for you, anyway?" Dave keeps running his mouth even as Karkat squeezes in next to him. The first taste of him is- familiar, in a way, and not. Maybe you should have expected that; the colors match close enough after all, and appearance probably does a lot for what you'd imagine most bulges taste like.

"Ahh- _shit- fuck,_ that's- god, that's so hot-" You'll admit that it does a lot for your ego, hearing Dave's words crumble into sex noise. His bulge twitches against your cheek, doing a lazy curl against your teeth before pulling back towards your tongue. It's easy to get into the rhythm of it, even with the difference in size and shape. Dave's bulge is longer than Karkat's, but a bit thinner and less active, like it's relishing in the sensation of being in your mouth. Dave gasps as you wind both ends of your tongue together and let his bulge fuck into your mouth through the hole, bobbing your head and sucking hard.

You slide right off and let it hang off your lips for a moment. Dave looks like he's about to get heatstroke.

"Not that- _fuck-_ not that this isn't the sexiest thing I've ever had the absolute goddamn delight of experiencing, because it is, absolutely, the hottest fucking thing I've ever faced down on my own, but I think I might have stepped in something really un-sexy just now and it's kinda killing my vibe, you know?"

You snort. Dave flushes, even as Karkat comes up behind him and starts running his hands down Dave's chest. You think you hear Dave squeak, but he doesn't skip a beat.

"I'm serious; it was like _way_ too wet to be vomit, but kinda sticky, you know? And a little chunky; I don't know if it was piss or beer or mud or whatever, but you never know in an alleyway like this. Might've been blood, god, I think I can feel it soaking into my socks; you think I can take a second to just-"

"-Shut up, maybe?" Karkat finally pulls back Dave's hair and looks him in the eye, from the side anyway. That can't be comfortable, but Dave moans submissively under Karkat's glare, another trill buzzing out of him. "I'm willing to give up a blowjob from my buddy Sollux here to distract you, if that's what you need."

"Yes, sir!" Dave's grin looks a little dopey and a lot triumphant, so you almost think this was what he had planned. Either way your nook and bulges have recovered some from the display, and you're ready to keep going. A little rearrangement later and you're back against the wall, though you've pulled your suit up a little so you can protect your knobby knees from getting too scraped up.

It's a sight to behold, from where you are. Dave tilts his head back and moans as you drag your tongue up against his bulge again, and Karkat just about pins him to the wall above you, half his face hidden in Dave's shoulder. You can _feel_ when Karkat pushes into Dave, the languorous roll of his hips pushing against Dave's, the transference of force in a slow, building wave that culminates in Dave's bulge sliding deeper into your throat.

"Hh- _aah_ -"

And he makes these really cute noises as he's getting fucked too. You hum around his bulge and he _keens,_ the muscle on your tongue flexing from the intensity of his pleasure. Karkat probably feels it too, because he doesn't pull out and tease like he would with someone else; he pushes deeper in, so deep that when you reach back to grab his ass and your arms brush his hips, you just _know_ he pushed in to the root.

You jerk as you feel warmth encompassing your bulges, both of them at once now. Heat pushes into your nook, but it's nothing tangible exactly, just warmth and pressure and the muggy air at your exposed insides. You realize it's Dave's psi a moment later when it starts to _squeeze_ , making you choke in surprise.

"S-sorry," But you can see how much Dave enjoys it when you laugh around his bulge, his face screwed up in concentration. You press your hands to his thighs and push him back against Karkat, watching his eyes go wide as Karkat takes the hint and _shoves._

You're not sure how to describe the sound he makes, but only because you're pretty sure you drown it out in your own head when, as Karkat picks up the pace for you, Dave's psi goes nuts in your nook. It feels at first like it's going to split you open, before receding, and then being replaced with a weirdly _wet_ sort of heat. It feels a lot like a ghostly tongue, actually, reaching deeper into you than you thought anything could reach.

You choke on his bulge again as Karkat growls and shoves Dave's hips further forward. The sound of him fucking Dave is partially covered up by Dave's trills and half-formed encouragements, mingling with the sound of you gagging on bulge, and it's almost enough to distract you from swallowing around him, almost enough to make you focus on your pleasure alone. 

But you've got practice with this sort of thing, more than enough, and now's a great time to put that to good use. You grab your bulges and squeeze, tugging in time to the pulse of Dave's psi in your nook; listen to him wail in pleasure and pain as Karkat sinks his teeth deep into his shoulder. Fuck, that's gonna leave a mark, and you know Karkat; he breaks skin every time.

Would it scar? Would Dave _want_ it to scar? Fuck. _Fuck._

By some miracle, even after all the action your crotch has had already, you spill first. You pull your head back and grab Dave's bulge, jerk him in time with your own hips twitching up as yellowy geneslime splatters the ground and across your thighs. The sight of you probably does it for him because Dave tosses his head back with a strangled gasp, and you feel a hot streak of fluid across your face.

Rude. Kinky, but rude. It drips into your mouth, and you lick it up as he twitches above you, boneless and overfucked, practically held up by Karkat's teeth. You want to burn the image into your eyes forever, their intertwined bodies writhing above you, a trickle of blood from the corner of Karkat's mouth and the look of complete ecstasy on Dave's face.

"Shit- nngh-" Karkat finally lets go of Dave's shoulder and pulls out, more pale red slime splashing onto the ground. Dave looks like he can barely stand. Karkat sits down on the crate from earlier, running his clean hand over his face and fishing a rag out from... somewhere on his uniform, you don't know. Leave it to the threshecutioner to be prepared to deal with spontaneous messes of bodily fluids.

He tosses you a different one and gives himself as thorough a scrubbing as he can with something so small. It doesn't do much for him, though, not against the combined output of three trolls. It does even less for you, but unlike him you're mostly naked, so you can just push most of it off with your hands and try to ignore the sticky feeling when you put your suit back on.

"Damn." Dave sighs. "Just... wow. I feel like I'm probably drained until next drone season, huh. Not that I'm allowed to contribute to the slurry supply but the thought counts, and I'm not gonna be able to think of a bucket without aching in weird places until next sweep."

He waves his hand and you watch as the fluid on his skin dissipates in the reddish light of his psi. Can't do much for his clothes, but you still manage to be jealous of that neat little trick. He puts his shades back on and his hands only shake a little bit.

"So, uh..." He gulps. Fiddles with the hem of his shirt and glances between you and Karkat like he's weighing his chances. You glance at Karkat and he already looks like he's ready to try and argue with the captain to let Dave onto the ship, but Dave hasn't noticed. "You two wanna trade trollhandles? No pressure if you don't, it was a fun one-time thing if you want it to be, but I don't really know if I'm gonna be able to make it back to this station any time soon and I think it'd be pretty cool if we could trade bulge pics every now and again without the stench of nasty back alley haunting our sniffnodes and all."

You glance over to Karkat. As one, the two of you stand, round on a suddenly terrified-looking Dave, and-

-plant a big, obnoxiously loud kiss on either of his cheeks. The ones on his face, to be clear.

"We can trade trollhandles." Karkat say, and swings an arm over his shoulders. "You still owe Sollux another drink, and unfortunately for me, I bend to his whims _way_ too easily."

Dave blinks, voice cracking slightly as he looks at you and Karkat.

"Hell yes." He says, as you drag him back into the bar.


End file.
